On Sep 30, 8:58 pm, Neil Cerutti <ne...@norwich.edu> wrote: > On 2011-09-30, DevPlayer <devpla...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > I still assert that contradiction is caused by narrow perspective. > > > By that I mean: just because an objects scope may not see a certain > > condition, doesn't mean that condition is non-existant. > > > I also propose that just because something seems to contradict doesn't > > mean it is false. Take for instance: > > > Look out your window. Is it daylight or night time? You may say > > it is daylight or you may say it is night time. I would > > disagree that only one of those conditions are true. Both > > conditions are true. Always. It is only day (or night) for YOU. > > But the opposite DOES in fact exist on the other side of the > > world at the same time. > > > I call this Duality of Nature (and I believe there was some > > religion somewhere in some time that has the same notion, > > Budism I think but I could be mistaken). I see such > > "contradictions" in what appears to be most truths. > > You are not alone. Many ancient philosophers, fathers of > religious and scientific thought, thought the same. > > They thought that contradictory qualities could exist in objects > simultaneously. For example, they thought that a cat was both big > and small, because it was big compared to a mouse and small > compared to a house. They didn't notice that big and small were > not poperties of the cat, at all but were instead statements > about how a cat relates to another object. > > When you say, "It is night," you are making an assertion about a > position on the surface of the earth and its relationship to the > sun. > > If you are not discussing a specific a position on the Earth, > then you cannot make a meaningful assertion about night or day at > all. Night and Day are not qualities of the entire Earth, but > only of positions on the Earth.
But just imagine that we were all pre-galiliean savages -- knowing nothing about the roundness of the earth, the earth going round and so on and somehow you and I get on the phone and we start arguing: Rusi: Its 9:30 pm Neil: No its 12 noon How many cases are there? We both may be right, I may be wrong (my watch may have stopped) or we both etc ie conflicting data may get resolved within a larger world view (which is what devplayer is probably saying). Until then it is wiser to assume that that larger world view exists (and I dont yet know it) than to assume that since I dont know it it does not exist. For me (admittedly an oriental) such agnosticism (literally "I-do-not- know-ness") is as much a foundation for true religiosity as effective science. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
